{"id":1603,"date":"2019-03-14T10:03:08","date_gmt":"2019-03-14T14:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/?p=1603"},"modified":"2019-03-14T11:24:33","modified_gmt":"2019-03-14T15:24:33","slug":"born-to-be-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/index.php\/2019\/03\/14\/born-to-be-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Born to Be In It"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Born to Be In It<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beto O\u2019Rourke \u2013 announcing his candidacy for President of the United States<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Former Texas Congressman Beto O\u2019Rourke declared his candidacy for the Presidency of the United States.  While he made an official \u201csocial media\u201d announcement<\/a>, sitting on the couch beside his wife; in almost Trumpian fashion he preempted his own headline with a premature tweet to his hometown newspaper twelve hours before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He joins a crowded field, with fifteen other candidates already declared.  Three others (and probably more not \u201cout\u201d yet) are expected to announce, including the \u201celephant in the room,\u201d former Vice President Joe Biden. It\u2019s reminiscent of the Democratic primaries of 1992 and 1976, when there was no apparent front-runner.  In both, a \u201cdark horse\u201d candidate emerged to win the nomination, and go onto secure the Presidency; Jimmy Carter in 1976, and Bill Clinton in 1992. (Yes I definitely ignored the 1988 primary, when Michael Dukakis emerged to run against George HW Bush.  I don\u2019t think the end of the Reagan Presidency, despite the Iran-Contra Affair, was analogous to the post-Nixon election in 1976, or the Ross Perot candidacy in 1992.)<\/em>  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are many reasons why so many candidates are running for President.  The first is the \u201cblood in the water\u201d scenario, as Democrats see the more than troubled Presidency of Donald Trump as an opportunity.  The belief is:  IF you can catch on and survive the primary process to win the nomination, defeating Trump in the general election will be the easier of the two races.  They see this is \u201ctheir time,\u201d or more exactly, their \u201cbest shot;\u201d particularly if they were \u201cborn to be in it;\u201d the Presidency of the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it\u2019s not just political considerations and ego that brings them into the race.  Each of these candidates see the United States at some crossroads:  generationally (time for the baby boomers to go,) environmentally (the Green New Deal,) culturally (the #METOO and LGBTQIA movements) and economically (income inequality.)   And all of them see the Trump Presidency as an American disaster, one that has placed the fate and future of the nation at risk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One potential candidate who has already withdrawn from consideration is Ohio\u2019s Senator Sherrod Brown. In the crowded field, Brown could not find his path to the nomination, but his brief interest in the Presidency has already impacted the campaign.  From Amy Klobuchar to Beto O\u2019Rourke to Elizabeth Warren, almost every candidate has adopted Brown\u2019s message of the \u201cdignity of work,\u201d appealing to American laborers to vote their economic interests, instead of the \u201cwedge\u201d issues offered by Republicans (wall, abortion, \u201csocialism,\u201d kneeling during the National Anthem.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For many Democrats, O\u2019Rourke offers the uplifting candidacy reminiscent of 2008 Barack Obama (and for West Wing aficionados, he offers the joy of the Matt Santos campaign.)  He took on and almost defeated Ted Cruz in red\/red Texas, maybe in a more purple nation he can thread the needle of a more moderate Democrat and still appeal to the \u201cnew\u201d millennial vote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Should Vice President Biden enter the race, he and O\u2019Rourke will share an ideological lane.  Both are from the \u201cmoderate\u201d wing of the Party, particularly when compared to Senators Warren and Sanders.  Current polling shows Biden as having the best chance of defeating Trump in 2020.  He is the \u201csurest\u201d candidate, and yet is some ways he is also the most vulnerable. Biden\u2019s age is definitely a factor; at seventy-six years of age, if elected in 2020, he would be eighty-three at the end of his first term.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a career politician, Biden brings with him all of the experience, and all of the baggage, that stretches back to his first election in 1970.  He was elected to the Senate in 1972.  While that incredible depth of experience, including eight years as an extremely active Vice President in the Obama administration, obviously makes him the most qualified candidate in the race, it also brings with it the baggage of three failed Presidential bids, the Clarence Thomas hearings, the crime control act, and a plagiarism scandal.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the left wing of the Democratic Party, neither O\u2019Rourke nor Biden offer the dramatic economic changes that Warren or Sanders suggest.  For the environmental wing, they don\u2019t have the intense focus of Jay Inslee.  And for those looking for diversity, for the end of \u201cwhite dudes\u201d as candidates, they don\u2019t offer the diversity that Castro, Harris, Booker, Gillibrand or Buttigieg  represent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beto O\u2019Rourke is in.\u00a0He\u2019s gotten a ton of attention, and hours of time on MSNBC just this morning.\u00a0\u00a0But the Democrats have a long way to go before they face the ultimate test: moving America away from the disaster that is the Trump Presidency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ADDENDUM – The President (Trump) has decided that his derogatory nickname for Beto is “Robert Francis” – presumably after Bobby (Robert Francis) Kennedy. Kennedy was the candidate who was able to unite liberals and workers in the Democratic Party – hardly a derogatory thing!!! check out the Vanity Fair<\/a> spread on Beto<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Declared Candidate for the Democratic Nomination for President in 2020 (3\/14\/19)<\/p>\n\n\n\n